"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

January 18, 2013

But guys, we thought you liked a good joke

House Republican leaders on Friday announced a plan to condition a three-month increase in the debt limit on the Senate committing to pass a budget by the April 15 statutory deadline.

This protracted legislative temper tantrum will never need the correction of a presidential veto, of course, since Senate adults will properly ignore the House children. Nonetheless an instant, emphatic No from the White House would have been pleasantly reassuring. (NBC News reported, in effect, a WH "no comment.")

At least we now know what two or three days of huddled contemplation and ritzy quiet time can do for House Republicans. Nothing. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, it seems, that can mitigate their targeted hostilities and indiscriminate wreckage.

Just for grins, though--just for the incalculable amusement of watching them go really ballistic--I wish some WH operative would leak the historical word to these historic ignoramuses of President Lincoln's having suspended the writ of habeas corpus when faced with similarly perilous, insurrectionary acts against domestic tranquility.

Comments

House Republican leaders on Friday announced a plan to condition a three-month increase in the debt limit on the Senate committing to pass a budget by the April 15 statutory deadline.

This protracted legislative temper tantrum will never need the correction of a presidential veto, of course, since Senate adults will properly ignore the House children. Nonetheless an instant, emphatic No from the White House would have been pleasantly reassuring. (NBC News reported, in effect, a WH "no comment.")

At least we now know what two or three days of huddled contemplation and ritzy quiet time can do for House Republicans. Nothing. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, it seems, that can mitigate their targeted hostilities and indiscriminate wreckage.

Just for grins, though--just for the incalculable amusement of watching them go really ballistic--I wish some WH operative would leak the historical word to these historic ignoramuses of President Lincoln's having suspended the writ of habeas corpus when faced with similarly perilous, insurrectionary acts against domestic tranquility.